Ferdinand Mainzer

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Painting of a distinguished man, oil on canvas. Brown and red color pallette. The man leans back in his chair, looks at the artist through pince-nez. He raises his eyebrows and has a moustache.
Lovis Corinth: Portrait of Dr. Ferdinand Mainzer (1899)

Ferdinand Mainzer (16 January 1871 – 3 January 1943) was a German-Jewish gynaecologist and historical author.

Born 16 January 1871,[1] Mainzer wrote his doctoral dissertation on wandering spleen. In the 1890s he worked at the Berlin clinic of the gynecologist Leopold Landau.[2][3]

Mainzer had artistic connections and historical interests. He married Gertrud Sabersky, a student of the artist Walter Leistikow, and his own portrait was painted by Lovis Corinth in 1899.[4] After a hand injury meant that he could no longer perform surgery, he turned to writing about antiquity.[5] He was interested in numismatics, and a friend of the numismatist Edward Gans.[6] His biography of Julius Caesar was translated into French and English, and widely reviewed. The book inspired Thornton Wilder to write his own novel about Caesar, The Ides of March.[7]

Mainzer was a close friend of the Catholic priest Friedrich von Erxleben, who was a member of the Solf Circle of intellectuals involved in the resistance against Nazism.[5] Mainzer and his family were helped to escape to England by the daughter of Wilhelm and Hanna Solf, the Countess So'oa'emalelagi "Lagi" von Ballestrem-Solf, who escorted them with their jewellery hidden in the lining of her clothes.[8]

Mainzer died 3 January 1943[1][9] in Los Angeles.[10] His daughter Lucie Manén married Otto John in 1949.[11] He also had a son Max Mainzer (1902–1987) who married Eva Perlis (1908–2006). In May 2021, a portrait of Ferdinand Mainzer by Lovis Corinth was accepted for the nation in lieu of a UK inheritance tax bill.[12] Corinth also painted a portrait of Max entitled Max Mainzer with a Siberian Greyhound (1912).

Works[edit]

  • Wandermilz und Splenektomie, München: J. F. Lehmann, 1892
  • 'Das Dekadrachmon von Athen', Zeitschrift für Numismatik, vol. 36 (1926), pp. 37–54
  • Siciliana aus griechisch-römischer Zeit, Berlin: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1930.
  • Clodia: Politik und Liebe auf dem Palatin, Berlin: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1931.
  • Der Kampf um Caesars Erbe, Leipzig: E.P. Tal, 1934. Translated by Eden and Cedar Paul as Caesar's mantle; the end of the Roman republic, New York: Viking, 1936.

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Thomas Corinth, ed., Lovis Corinth: eine Dokumentation, Wasmuth, 1979, p.377
  2. ^ British Gynaecological Journal, Vol. 12 (1896), p.546
  3. ^ The American journal of obstetrics and diseases of women and children, Vol. 36 (1897), p.170
  4. ^ Horst Uhr, Lovis Corinth, p.117
  5. ^ a b Konrad Weber, Prof. Dr. Dr. Friedrich Erxleben, October 2008.
  6. ^ Eduard Gans Family Collection 1796-1982
  7. ^ Richard Henry Goldstone, Thornton Wilder: an intimate portrait, Saturday Review Press, 1975, p.126
  8. ^ Peter J. Hempenstall & Paula Tanaka Mochida, The lost man: Wilhelm Solf in German history, p.233
  9. ^ Another source suggests his year of death as 1944. Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, Vol. 14 (1973), p.276
  10. ^ Marcus, Jadob Rader; Daniels, Judith M., eds. (1994). The concise dictionary of American Jewish biography. Vol. 2. L–Z. Brooklyn, New York: Carlson. ISBN 0-926019-74-0.
  11. ^ Otto John, Twice through the lines: the autobiography of Otto John, Macmillan, 1972, p.194.
  12. ^ "Two UK galleries to share portrait of German doctor who resisted Nazis", The Guardian
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